Everyone remembers the extensive front-page coverage The Washington Post devoted to the jury selection and subsequent murder trial of infamous abortionist Kermit Gosnell right? Oh wait, that never happened, but another “local crime story” that occurred well outside the Post's home delivery area seems to be getting much better coverage than the Gosnell trial.
The Tuesday June 11 edition of The Washington Post ran a story on the front page of its Style section highlighting the first day of jury selection in the murder trial of George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. In total, the Post devoted 30-paragraphs to jury selection, yet among major newspapers, when it came to the murder trial of Kermit Gosnell, only The New York Times bothered to cover that portion of the trial.
The Tuesday headline read “All eyes on Sanford…a Florida town feels the case’s divisive impact,” a title that could be identical to a story on the Gosnell jury selection had the Post bothered to cover it. Instead, the Post’s Dan Zak and dozens of media outlets have been camped out in Sanford, Florida, since before the trial began. Here's a fun fact for everyone: it took the Post nearly 4 weeks after the Gosnell trial began for it to send a reporter up to Philadelphia.
The Post story on George Zimmerman could have read exactly like coverage of the Gosnell trial had the Post reported on the story from the beginning. Instead, we are stuck reading a what could have been story had their been real media coverage of Gosnell. As we at the Media Research Center documented, the liberal media gave virtually no coverage of the abortion trial, but the death of Trayvon Martin has received hours of coverage, primarily on MSNBC which at times has acted almost as an unofficial press agent for the Martin family, particularly with programs such as Al Sharpton's PoliticsNation.
It’s odd that the Post has devoted such extensive coverage of the Trayvon Martin murder trial, when it could be classified as “local crime.” You'll recall that's how the Washington Post’s Sarah Kliff explained the reason why she had not covered the murder trial of Kermit Gosnell. If by the Post’s own definition Gosnell is “local crime” then surely an individual murder in the small town of Sanford, Florida is “local crime” as well and should not be covered by the Post.
Likely the liberals at the Post did not feel comfortable reporting on a story like Gosnell which hurt the pro-abortion agenda but is happy to send reporters to a trial days before its begins when it involves a generally conservative, pro-gun rights state and issues of race. It’s unfortunate that a story with serious national implications surrounding abortion in America didn’t get the same attention.
